We present the lineup for the 7th Active Vista International Human Rights Film Festival & The 2nd Never Forget Film Festival which will take place from September 20th -28th at the UP Film Center & the Cinema Centenario in Quezon City, Metro Manila (Philippines).

7th Active Vista – International Human Rights Film Festival

Ticket price is PhP 150. Reserve your tickets now through Google Form bit.ly/AVTix2019 or message us through activevista@dakila.org.ph or 0917 800 4409.

September 20th – Cine Adarna – 7:00 pm (INVITATION ONLY)

On the President’s Ordersby James Jones and Olivier Sarbil

The searing story of President Duterte’s bloody campaign against drug dealers and addicts in the Philippines, told with unprecedented and intimate access to both sides of the war – the Manila police, and an ordinary family from the slum. Shot in the style of a thriller, this observational film combines the look and feel of a narrative feature film with a real life revelatory journalistic investigation into a campaign of killings. The film uncovers a murky world where crime, drugs and politics meet in a deathly embrace – and reveal that although the police have been publicly ordered to stop extra-judicial killings, the deaths continue.

Trailer:

September 23th – Cine Adarna – 5:30 pm

Ang Hupaby Lav Diaz – Philippines | 2019 – 282 minutes | Fiction

It is the year 2034 AD and Southeast Asia has been in the dark for the last three years, literally, because the sun hasn’t shone as a result of massive volcanic eruptions at the Celebes Sea in 2031. Madmen control countries, communities, enclaves and bubble cities. Cataclysmic epidemics razed over the continent. Millions have died and millions have left.

As a tropical storm beats down on the Philippine island of Cebu, two sisters leave work and never make it home. The documentary exposes a Kafkaesque extravaganza populated by flamboyantly corrupt public officials, cops on the take, and a frenzied legal and media circus. It is also an intimate family drama focused on the near mythic struggle of two angry and sorrowful mothers who have dedicated more than a decade to executing or saving one young man, Paco Larrañaga.

Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn‘t like. Here we meet five “digital scavengers” among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete “inappropriate” content of the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts. Yet underneath their work lie profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship?

In autumn 2014 large protests were held in Hong Kong after China instituted antidemocratic election reform. A civic movement known as the “Umbrella Revolution” ultimately failed. This film does not focus on political events but rather on what followed. Where did the lives of the leading activists lead them and how? In a way, the dramatic events affected all of them. However, each one of them must now come to terms with the consequences and mainly with life in a country with an uncertain future. This is an intimate portrait of five former revolutionaries, including a popular singer, a student, a businessman, and a boxer.

When Jennifer Laude, a Filipina transwoman, is brutally murdered by a U.S. Marine, three women intimately invested in the case–an activist attorney (Virgie Suarez), a transgender journalist (Meredith Talusan) and Jennifer’s mother (Julita “Nanay” Laude)–galvanize a political uprising, pursuing justice and taking on hardened histories of U.S. imperialism.

A college student, his girlfriend and bestfriend get more than what they bargained for when they decide to learn about the dark days of Martial Law straight from an old retired soldier who may be one of its worst abusers.

Joey, Kathy, Sylvia and Maritess are not only classmates – they are the best of friends. Joey is a drug user who sleeps around. Kathy is a mediocre singer who will stop at nothing to fulfill her dreams of going big-time. Sylvia is a liberated woman who finds security in the love of her ex-husband who is now living in with another man. Maritess plays the role of a conventional housewife who is reduced to a baby-making machine. In the span of three years – from 1979 to 1982 – the film traces the lives of these four women through their seemingly desperate but also interwoven experiences and in their attempts to resolve their individual problems are mirrored the different faces of the woman in our society today.

Hendrix dreams of hip-hop greatness, but he is spiraling down a rabbit-hole of crime and poverty until he meets Doc, an old poet still haunted by his martial law past. Can they turn each other’s lives around before they are swallowed by their circumstance? The film is a celebration of the underground Pinoy hip-hop world and how we find the words to find ourselves. (Cinemalaya Catalogue 2018)